By Rom Lakritz, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchor
Ninety-two percent of employers report having too few or no qualified applicants amid the Great Resignation and a talent shortage spanning the globe. Small businesses are taking the biggest hits, as they’re unable to offer the compensation and benefits larger and more established businesses can. In fact, 44 percent of small businesses have less than three months of cash reserve, forcing employers to focus their time and resources on keeping their business afloat while suffering from a staffing shortage.
In a market with a manpower shortage, choosing the right tech stack for a business can be a make-or-break decision for a business owner. The right software has the power to relieve employers and their teams from manual tasks involved with day-to-day business management, which are often tedious and the part of the role that employees enjoy least. By eliminating menial tasks, employees are able to focus their time on actions and activities that are more enjoyable, valuable, and that directly contribute to their business’s growth.
The talent shortage and the effect on small businesses
Amid the Great Resignation, in late November, 10.6 million jobs became available, yet only 6.7 million workers filled the positions, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, causing many businesses to scramble to find talent for the company vacancies.
The majority of resignees were mid-level employees who most likely hit a breaking point after months of being overworked remotely. Workload during the pandemic rose two hours after companies transitioned to online work and eliminated commute time, leaving employees burnt out and rethinking their work-life balance.
After many mid-level employees quit, there were not enough qualified individuals to compensate for the losses. Many small businesses had to increase compensation in order to attract qualified talent. As the hiring crisis rages on, small business owners struggle to find qualified workers, causing senior-level employees to take on more work, putting them at risk for burnout.
Small businesses account for almost half of private-sector employees, making it critical to find mass-scale solutions that guide small businesses through crisis mode. Finding ways to prevent burnout on a mass scale is essential to prevent another Great Resignation, so businesses can continue to flourish and not suffer additional losses due to turnover.
Tech stack to offset understaffed businesses
It’s important to note that not all tech stacks are going to magically transform a business. Identifying the problem and understanding where bottlenecks exist in your company is the first step in utilizing the tech stack to expedite those tasks.
Billing and payment challenges are one example where the right tech stack can greatly expedite time-consuming and manual tasks that can easily be automated. Thirty-nine percent of small businesses spend five hours or more per week dealing with payments issues, according to a recent study by WePay. That’s 20 hours a month that could have been spent on activities that contribute to the growth of the business. Eighty-two percent of businesses in North America during the pandemic already changed how their business sends and receives payments, according to a 2020 Mastercard study.
By utilizing the right tech stack, manual processes such as billing and collections can be automated and streamlined and businesses can utilize their manpower for more productive work and eliminate tedious admin tasks, reducing burnout, and contributing to business growth.
Put simply, in the tech era we live in, it’s crucial for companies to utilize the right software when they’re short-staffed and suffering from high burnout. Utilizing tech to automate manual and time-consuming processes allows their employees to focus on doing valuable work that directly contributes to their business growth.
About:
Rom Lakritz is the Co-founder and CEO of Anchor, the autonomous billing & collections platform. Rom is a certified CPA and serial entrepreneur. He’s part of the founding team and executive of five different startups and led the acquisition of Fireglass for $250M by Symantec, Omnix funding of over $35M, and IPO of a London-based company in the LSE. Now, he has returned to solve the challenge he had in the past, the pain of B2B billing & payments with Fintech startup Anchor, which automates the entire billing, collections, and payment cycle for all service providers and businesses.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.